by Sienna Blake
“I said get the fuck out.” I tore my eyes away from her. I couldn’t stand to see her tears. They were like ice shards, cutting open my veins. I looked to the wall to my right, my eyes landing on a replica of a famous impressionist painting of a couple having a picnic by a lake. Bitterness surged up inside me, mixing with my own wretched self-pity. “Nobody wants you here,” I yelled as loud as I could, my insides feeling like they were being torn to shreds, the fast beeping like a warning alarm. I wasn’t sure whether I was yelling at her or at myself.
The bed shifted as she yanked her weight off the edge. I heard a single pain-filled sob before she ran out of the room.
The instant the door clicked behind her, I sagged into the pillows, guilt and regret tumbling over my relief. Already I ached for her to return. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It was too hard to look at her and know she was never really mine. It almost killed me handing over those divorce papers. I’d rather be alone than to suffer in her presence.
Why was she here? Who contacted her?
Loretta. I knew it already. That meddling woman couldn’t keep her nose out of anything. Thought she knew what was best for me. How did she manipulate Noriko into coming here? Did she guilt Noriko into coming? Likely, Loretta begged. Please, Noriko. Drake has no one else. And he still loves you—so pathetic, I know—so you need to come because no one else will.
Fuck her. Fuck them all. I didn’t need anyone.
But the boy inside me knew that I was lying. My heart ached again, a long, lonely cry.
57
____________
Noriko
I jarred my wrists slamming on the door as I raced out of Drake’s hospital room.
Why did I come here? He didn’t want me here. He didn’t care. Sam was mistaken.
Firm hands grabbed my upper arm, forcing me to stop. Loretta was standing in the hallway outside his door, blinking at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Sam told me to come. Told me…” I heaved in a breath. “H-he doesn’t want me here.”
“Trust me, Noriko, he wants you here. He’s been calling out your name in his sleep.”
“He screamed at me to leave.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “During the day he sits in your studio among your finished paintings, just staring at them. He’s been sleeping in your room in your bed.”
“Then why…” Nobody wants you here, “why is he being such…”
“An asshole?” Loretta said this with no malice in her voice. “Are you really surprised?”
My shoulders dropped. “No,” I said quietly. I was an insecure fool. This was how Drake reacted when he was scared. When he was hurting. Like an injured animal, protecting the open wound in his bleeding heart, lashing out at those closest to him, clawing those who tried to get near him.
Loretta clicked her tongue. “I’ve been watching you two dance around each other for almost an entire year. Avoiding the truth about how you feel, not communicating with each other, acting like two children, dammit. The problem is that neither of you is prepared to throw yourself wholeheartedly in first.”
“Why do I have to be the one who moves first?”
Loretta raised an eyebrow. “Because you have a family who loves you. You had parents who loved each other. He never did. He doesn’t know what a good relationship is supposed to look like. You do.”
Tears clouded my vision as Loretta’s words poked large holes in my stubborn pride. But…it wasn’t enough. “I don’t know, Loretta.”
Loretta let out a low breath. “He’s too damn stubborn to tell you, but you need to know something. This isn’t his first heart attack. He was here in this hospital when he gave the order to send you home.”
I gasped as the cracks of my heart filled up with realization. That’s why he didn’t come to say goodbye. He was here. If only I’d known he was hurting. He never told me.
Why didn’t he tell me?
Because he couldn’t stand for me to see him this way. Just like right now. Oh, Drake, you and your silly swollen pride. I don’t care about that.
I remembered a line from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
I let out a shaky breath. “What do I do? He doesn’t want me in there.”
“That boy doesn’t know what he wants,” Loretta said sharply. “Noriko,” she grabbed my shoulders and looked right into my eyes, “do you love him?”
I nodded, because I couldn’t speak.
“Then you go in there and tell him that you’re not leaving.”
58
____________
Noriko
I took a steadying breath before I pushed open Drake’s hospital room door. He was in one of the larger suites on a quiet floor reserved for the hospital’s VIP guests. He lay in bed with his eyes closed as I padded up to him, his bed tilted up so he was sitting rather than lying.
His eyes snapped open. They widened before they narrowed. “I thought I told you to—”
“I know what you said. What’s even louder is what you’re not saying.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. He tore his eyes from me. “What the hell do you want? More money? The alimony wasn’t enough for you, huh? You want more?”
“I’m here, Drake. I’m not leaving.”
“Stubborn, girl,” he muttered. “Are you looking to get another scoop for your friend Jared?” His reminder stabbed at me. I refused to budge. “Poor Drake, lying in a hospital on the verge of death while his poor abused wife takes pity on him.”
“I’m here for you. And you’re not dying. Although,” I mused lightly, “I wouldn’t put it past you to die just to annoy me.”
His eyes snapped to mine. I swore I saw hope bobbing on the surface before it was drowned in fear. “Yeah, well, I don’t want you here. Get the fuck out.”
“I’m not going.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” His voice rose, shaking with emotion. “I don’t want you.”
I brushed his barbed words off me with a steadying breath. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Get the fuck out of here. Go back to where you came from, you greedy gold-digger.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving you.” I kept repeating these words, my voice and my resolve getting stronger and stronger with every repetition.
In life you choose to be the water or the rock.
Today, I would be the rock.
I would be the rock until he melted into water.
I could see him fighting the rising tide of grief, a grief so old and deep it stretched back to the darkness of his childhood. I saw all of him, the sad, lonely boy who became a scared, confused teenager who grew up to be a cold and ruthless man. I loved every part of him. I accepted every single piece. I promised each fragment of him that I was not leaving, every word of mine a battle chant. He was my home and I would die fighting for him. I would bleed to protect him. I would love him until my dying breath.
Trust me.
Believe in me, Drake.
Let me love you.
As my strength grew, his fury weakened. Yes, he still fought. And how he fought. But I would win. Because I was rock and I was love and love always won.
I had one last move saved up.
I threw open the gates to my soul. I dropped all shields around my heart. I let him see right into the very center of me, palms open, showing him that there was no judgement here. No conditions. Only love.
The last of his shields collapsed, his army spent. He sagged back like a broken soldier on his pillows, his arm flung over his face.
I reached for him, placing one hand on his cheek, rough with stubble, and the other on his poor heart, broken from too much sorrow. Give me your fears, husband, and I will shield you with my love. Hand me your sadness and I will dry it like tears in the sun.
“I’m right here, Drake. I’m right here and I’m not leaving.”
His arms moved so quickly I could barely react. They wrapped around me an
d pulled me against him, crushing me to him with more strength than I thought possible in his state.
“I’m staying,” I whispered as his arms closed around me. “You hear me? I’m not leaving you.”
I held him as he shook in my arms, the beeping of his heartbeat increasing in pace along with mine. My promise trickled down to the one who needed it most, the boy inside of him who just needed someone to stay.
59
____________
Drake
It hurt so fucking much. I felt like I was dying.
I was drowning in a deep ocean, my lungs burning from taking on water. I couldn’t swim to the surface. I couldn’t breathe.
As I suffered, as I kicked and pulled, I heard her words, I’m staying.
I felt her soft, warm body in my arms, her heart knocking against mine as our chests pressed together. She was hope filling my lungs like oxygen. She made me buoyant.
Slowly I rose up.
This was not the end of my darkness. It was part of me, I knew. But for the first time since I could remember, I saw light dappling on the surface.
I brushed my hands over her hair, her face, her shoulders, to make sure she was real. “Are you sure I’m not dead? This feels a lot like Heaven.”
She let out a laugh even as tears escaped those end-of-me eyes, or perhaps they were my beginning. I leaned in and licked each precious salty one, the taste of happiness and sadness. When I pulled back her eyes were hooded, her gaze on my mouth. Heat roared through my body and I tugged her closer.
“Excuse me?” I was vaguely aware of the nurse at the door. “You can’t be in here. Family only.”
Noriko snapped her left hand up to the air, the gold band glinting in the light, her eyes still on me. “I am family.”
She still wore her ring. Did that mean…? “We’re not divorced?” I dared to ask.
She shook her head, her hair falling about her cheeks. “I couldn’t sign the papers. Did you not know?”
I shook my head. “I told my assistant Sam to take care of it. I told her not to tell me when it had been done.”
“Sam was the one who called me.”
“Excuse me, sir? Miss?” A voice called from the door. “Visiting hours are over.”
“Go. Away,” Noriko yelled out.
There was a gasp, then a grumble before the door swung shut.
I smirked at my wife. “You’ve become very bossy, you know?”
“You’re rubbing off on me.”
“I like the sound of that,” I joked, before everything in me grew serious. There was so much to say. “I missed you all these months. God, how I missed you.” I weaved my fingers in her hair, pulling her forehead against mine, inhaling her sweet breath.
“Why didn’t you come?”
“I did.”
She shook her head, her hair falling about us. “Why didn’t you come and bring me home?”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. Home. She said home.
“I thought you didn’t want to come back. With what I did to you and the pills—”
“Oh God.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m embarrassed about the pills,” it came out muffled. I tugged down her hands, forcing her to face me. “I have no excuse for the pills.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need—”
“I do need to explain. It was my plan to leave after one year. I made a promise to my father I’d come back. But I fell in love with you, Drake, inconveniently and irreversibly, and I wanted to stay…”
The words unspoken were clear…until you locked me up and refused to let me see my father. God, when I looked back at my behavior now, I felt sick. I could hardly believe that he and I were the same man. I felt justified at the time. I felt right.
“I know it doesn’t excuse what I said to Jared,” she continued, “I was desperate. I just wanted him to help me get back to Japan. I didn’t think he’d sell our story to a reporter.”
“I know, Noriko. I don’t blame you for that.”
She shook her head. “But the fallout of my careless actions. How can you ever forgive me after I took your company away from you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Noriko, you did the best thing for me.”
“What?”
“I stepped down as CEO, yes. But I still sit on the board of directors. I still have a say. Blackwell Industries has been good to me, but I don’t owe it my life anymore. I don’t want it to be my life. I want to figure out who I am and what I really want to do. Thanks to you, I now have the time to do that.” I cupped her face and searched her eyes, fear already tumbling around my stomach. “Noriko, I want to be a better husband. I want to be your perfect husband. I am far from it. I’m going to fuck up. I’m going to fuck up a lot, I imagine. Most of the time with you, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She smiled like the Mona Lisa. My Mona Lisa. “I don’t know what I’m doing either. We can work it out together.”
“You and me.”
“Yes.”
“Are we really doing this?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t take any more air between us. I pulled her mouth to mine and kissed her with all the strength of everything I felt but had never been good at saying. With every lap of my tongue, I promised her that I would try to be the man she needed, I would fight to be the husband she deserved. The beeping increased again as need rushed through my blood.
She giggled against my mouth.
“Damn this machine. I am at a disadvantage.”
She pulled away a little, her eyes twinkling. “I like hearing how I affect you, Mr. Blackwell.”
“Don’t get smug, Mrs. Blackwell.”
She grabbed my hand, the one without the IV drip, and placed it on her heart. “Now we’re even,” she whispered.
60
____________
Noriko
After Drake was discharged from the hospital, he and I barely let go of each other as we rode in his limo home. Loretta had gone ahead to get the house ready for us, and she greeted us at the door with subdued happiness.
Drake and I were silent as we climbed the stairs, my eyes darting around, soaking in the place I had come to call home. Had it really been eight months since I left?
Drake paused at the top of the stairs and I followed his line of sight towards the dark hallway of the west wing. Unease bunched in my stomach as he pulled me towards the abandoned rooms.
“Drake?” I tugged back on his hand. “You don’t have to.”
He looked at me with a heaviness in his stare. “I want to. I need you to know…everything before you decide that you’re staying.”
“I’m staying—”
He held up a hand to silence me. “Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep after you hear what I have to say.”
I nodded, my mouth going dry.
“You know he killed his father? It was deemed a suicide. Surprising how there was no note.”
“Drake wouldn’t murder anyone.”
“Wouldn’t he? Even to get revenge for the murder of his mother?”
Was this what Drake had to reveal to me?
He led me into his mother’s bedroom first. That cream and yellow room I entered without permission a year ago. We held each other among the dust and her ghost and he told me about his mother’s drug problem, about the men she pulled into her bed, how his parents fought, how it got violent. All things I knew. Hearing it from him—his voice cracking as he spoke—hearing the scared, silent boy inside finally getting to speak, tore shreds off me. I knew it must be hard for him to speak of the darkness in his past. It warmed my heart that he was sharing it anyway with me.
I watched as slowly, bit by bit, the chains of his childhood fell away. Not all of it. Perhaps never all of it. We always carry the past with us, as much a part of us as our blood and our cells. But the healing started today.
We left his mother’s room. When I paused at the doorway, glancing back, I swear I felt her watching me, sendin
g me her wishes. Look after him. Because I wasn’t able to.
Drake walked me farther into the west wing, to the next room.
Oh my God. His father’s bedroom.
I rubbed my palms on my skirt. I held my breath as Drake pushed open the door, indicating for me to enter first.
I did so, my entire body tense.
The room I stepped into wasn’t a bedroom.
It was a man’s study covered in a thick layer of dust.
I felt Drake suddenly at my back, his breath on my neck. “My father died here.”
61
____________
Drake
Sixteen years ago…
“You’re drunk. Again.” I glared at my father, a broken mess in an armchair in his study. I turned to get the hell out of this room that stank of sweat and the sharp tang of addiction. I could barely watch as my father, the once great Pierson Blackwell, became a sniveling, cowering wisp of a man those last few months after she died. I couldn’t fucking watch him destroy himself. “Clean yourself up,” I said over my shoulder, my voice hardening. I felt relief when my insides froze over the pain, hiding it from me as if through a thick sheet of ice. I paused at the door and turned to stare at him once more. My lip lifted in a sneer. “You’re disgusting.”
My father mumbled something into his hands.
“What was that?”
His admission came out between his fingers like a hiss. “I killed her.”
I froze, my hand clenching into a fist around the door handle. “You…”
“If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have needed those drugs. If she didn’t need those drugs, she wouldn’t have taken too much that day and…and…”
My lungs released a fraction. He hadn’t actually killed her. He blamed himself for what she did to herself. The same thing he was doing to himself with that fucking bottle.
I strode towards the side table and grabbed the half-empty bottle of Macallan. He grabbed the other end and the liquid sloshed onto my wrists.
“Leave it,” he begged, his acrid breath wafting all around my face.
This close I could see how the alcohol had made his once vibrant face soft and sallow, yellowed his eyes and corroded his teeth with decay. I felt bile rising in the back of my throat. I snatched the bottle away from his weak hands, stepped over to the partly open window and threw it out. He moaned like he was in pain as it flew out across the lawn and landed somewhere among a bed of lilies. My mother’s favorite flowers.